The Velveteen Principles by Toni Raiten-D’Antonio

In The Velveteen Principles, counselor Toni Raiten-D’Antonio draws
lessons for living from the children’s
book The
Velveteen Rabbit by Margery
Williams. Raiten-D’Antonio found the
lessons from this book to be helpful for her clients in living as real people
rather than seeing themselves as objects.

The Velveteen Rabbit (you can skip this paragraph if you’ve read it) is
the story of a cheap, stuffed bunny that wants to be real. The rabbit has a rough time, especially when
faced with comparisons to fancier toys that erode its confidence. He is encouraged along the way by a toy horse
that had already been made “real” by the love of a child. The rabbit becomes a boy’s companion through
a severe illness, and though it is a trial, the rabbit’s courage and love for
the boy carries him through. The boy
loves him back and considers him real.
Even so, adults throw the rabbit out because they think it is riddled
with disease. A fairy rectifies the
situation by make the rabbit a real, flesh-and-blood bunny.

Raiten-D’Antonio sees a
parallel in the lives of people, who are encouraged by our culture to see
themselves as objects. Objects have
manufactured perfection. They are valued
for how they fit an ideal. Objectified
people hide there flaws, obsessively follow fads, lose their uniqueness, become
disconnected from themselves and others, and miss out on living. It is easy to fall prey to objectification
because our culture values and rewards its.

In contrast, real people are
imperfect. Their imperfections make them
unique. Reality isn’t simply a matter of
accepting imperfections; it is about being perfectly yourself, a person with
value because you are a person, with strengths and weakness, relationships, and
a place in the world. Reality is
challenging.

A dozen principles of being
real are described in the book. Some are
about the process of becoming real and some relate to what a real life is like.

The value carries through
most of the principles is empathy. We start with empathy for ourselves,
acknowledging and accepting ourselves as we are rather than trying to become a
perfect object. This self-empathy isn’t
about giving up or pretending everything is okay. It’s about setting aside the illusions of the
object-world and giving ourselves the grace and space to begin where we are.

Self-empathy gives us room
of empathy for others. Just as we stop
trying to make ourselves into perfect objects, we show the same grace to
others. Love, honesty and ethics spring
from empathy.

Real living has its own
dangers and pains. The truth can be
uncomfortable, especially the truth about us, and letting go of object-ideals
can be hard. However, the rewards or real living are a kind of contentment,
peace, and inner wealth that can’t be achieved by having or being an object.